More on Republican orthodoxy

To follow up on my earlier post regarding Mitt Romney and Rick Perry’s deviations from Republican orthodoxy, neither candidate is able to completely take advantage of the other’s weakness because of their own respective flaws on each issue.

There should be a huge opening to attack Romney on health care issues in the Republican primary, but Perry is not a convincing vehicle. Texas has the worst rate of health insurance coverage in the nation, and Massachusetts has the best.

There should be a huge opening to attack Rick Perry on immigration issues in the Republican primary, but Romney is not a convincing vehicle. Despite having fashioned himself as a hawk on illegal immigration, Romney was hit in the last campaign for employing illegal immigrants for landscaping work on his house in Belmont, Massachusetts, and criticized for changing his positions on illegal immigration. He lacks a consistent enough record on nearly every hot-button issue to tailor his campaign to anything but economic issues.